


craving (for)

by DrSchaf



Category: Boondock Saints (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Morality, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Sibling Incest, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 05:51:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12125934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrSchaf/pseuds/DrSchaf
Summary: There's a quiet sort of slowness about him like his whole self is muffled somehow, or filtered. Like the full level of Murphy-ness isn't coming through; like he's only halfway.





	craving (for)

**Author's Note:**

> There are some Murphy/OC scenes I didn't tag because she's not an actual character, just a plot device.
> 
> This is unhealthy and there is no fluff.

He's bent down and fumbling for the lighter, and the first thing he sees of her is—yellow. The skirt is wide and bright and dotted with flowers; some of them are orange. There's a trampled smoke down here, and a puddle of something that could be spilled beer. Stretching, his fingers find the lighter, and Connor sits up with a smile.  
  
She nods at him, polite, and focuses her own smile on Murphy. From the sound of it, she could be a Southerner.  
  
Murphy grins, teeth and all, and she stays.

*

By chance, they meet her again. Then again a few days later, still random.

It becomes a habit.

Rocco tells a story, and at one of the tables in the back, almost in the corner of the room, Murphy laughs with her. Attuned to the sound, Conner hears it over the racket and halfway across the room, and Rocco is telling a _story_ , so he makes to listen. He nods from time to time, putting in more effort than he thinks is reasonable while Murphy laughs somewhere behind him.  
  
“How did he even manage to pull that off? She's way out of his league.” Rocco pauses, grinning. “No offense.”  
  
“None taken.” Connor chugs another shot and coughs against the sting. “Suppose I'm gonna call it a night,” he says, and after clearing his throat, he says it again.

“You're beat?”

“No,” Connor says and stands, pretending to sway. “Yes.”

Rocco grins and reaches out to steady him by the shoulder. “Man, you think it's wise going like that? Need me to take you?”

Trying to shrug him off without being rude, Connor shakes his head and turns towards the door, eyes catching on Murphy. There isn't much to see. He's having a good time. His nose crinkles with laughter like he's four all over again.

They're having a good time.

“Murphy!” Rocco calls, waving his arms and all.

Connor flinches back and snatches at the offending limbs. “Let him-”

“He didn't see me anyway.” Rocco snorts, shaking his head. “Youths.”

“We're the same age,” Connor points out, and then he frowns and turns towards the door again.

“And that's why you should have some fun!” Rocco laughs and stumbles up, promptly aiming for the bathroom. Behind him, Murphy laughs too, a dumb snorting sound. Because he has fun.

He's knackered, there's no reason to wail in self-pity. “See ye around,” he says to Rocco who doesn't hear him, and leaves.

When he's halfway home, he remembers Murphy got the keys because he went out without his coat.

Not in the mood to go back, Connor waits in front of the door, tired and a bit unsure, and when he starts feeling chilly, he migrates up the stairs and sits with his back against their own door. It's a bit pathetic. To pretend it isn't, he smokes for a while, rolling his head against the clammy wood behind him.  
  
It takes shorter than he thought it would and longer than something in him likes, then Murphy comes, flush on his cheeks and a weird look on his face. He looks a bit mean, maybe, or it's just the light.  
  
They don't talk.

*

On St. Patrick's Day, Murphy gets plastered.

Everyone gets plastered, really, but Murphy has been itching for a fight for weeks, and now he's in a weird state of drunkenness. He's twitchy, for whatever reason that may be. Connor doesn't ask; there's no need for it. If Murphy needs a fight—tonight, with everyone being Irish, he'll get his chance, and then his strange mood will blow over.  
  
There is no fight.  
  
People start to filter out and Connor's head feels fuzzy and sort of big, and all the way in the back of the bar, she keeps sitting on Murphy's lap as if there aren't enough other places to sit for her by now. It's disrespectful to use a person as furniture, Connor thinks, and then he gets pulled in to supervise a bet between Rocco and Doc, because Doc tried to keep up with their drinking this year. It costs him a bottle of tequila no one except Rocco wants to drink, and then he starts snoring right away, still sitting on his chair behind the counter.  
  
Connor grins at the bar at large and decides on one last shot for the way home, helping himself when prodding Doc proves futile.  
  
She giggles.

Looking back over his shoulder, his frown is ready to go even before he sees Murphy hoisting her up on the table. Connor blinks, and up she goes. He blinks again, and Murphy scoots forward and lifts her feet on the bench beside him, disappearing face first under her skirt.  
  
Somewhere, something clashes. Maybe it's in his head. Someone whistles, sounding like Rocco, and the guy whose name he forgot frowns so deeply his face looks like a caricature.  
  
Rushing out a breath, Connor feels acutely overwhelmed when he realizes he's not aroused despite staring at the back of a woman currently being eaten out. If her moan is any indication. If Murphy's head, the top of it, the dark shock of hair he would recognize anywhere, buried between her legs—is any indication.  
  
“Get a room!”  
  
He doesn't know the guy, but he does know that everyone - which means at least eight people if he's counted right - is watching his brother being busy with someone he hasn't even kissed yet. Murphy hasn't, he'd know despite trying to avoid looking in their general direction whenever she's at the bar, too. He'd still know. Rocco would've told him.  
  
“Rocco,” he says.  
  
Rocco blinks at him, shot glass against his mouth and lewd grin on his face. “Mh?”  
  
Something surges through him like a hot ball of aggression, and Connor grips the edge of the bar, swallowing to keep down the last beer. “Take yer fucking eyes off them,” he says and stands, eyes on the door. He leaves to the voice of someone complaining about the crudity of it and Rocco's cheering whoop when she laughs and moans at the same time.  
  
In a backstreet, he empties his stomach. Then he goes home, throat stinging and no amount of water and smokes enough to clear his fucking head.

Murphy never crosses boundaries. Not this kind of boundaries; vulgar and repulsive and so far from devout like he usually is. It's not an act. They don't act, and still Murphy chooses to go that far. In public. She must be important—extremely important. She must be _it._  
  
Murphy doesn't come home for hours.

*

He's not sure when Murphy sees her, but still: Murphy has a girlfriend.  
  
It's both good and bad—the nicest words he can come up with after having thought about it long and hard. Everything else he must leave for confession.  
  
It's good, because after trespassing so fiercely, at least by committing to her, Murphy stands by his deeds and shows how important it is for him. It, being the girl. He guesses, at least. Murphy doesn't outright admit to her being _his_ now, but he doesn't need to anyway.  
  
And it's bad, because trying to figure out when they're meeting drives him a bit mad. Murphy never asks him if he wants to go out with them, and he never officially introduces them - something one should do, in Connor's opinion, when one's twin starts dating _the_ person.  
  
Her.  
  
It's been a few weeks, longer than necessary to come to terms with it, and he can't figure out why he didn't or why Murphy won't make it public. Murphy keeps her away from him like he's some kind of perpetrator until Connor is left to assume they only meet when he's at Rocco's, indulging the only love they don't share; movie-marathons. (Once, he thinks about not going anymore.)  
  
He should be happy for him. He would be happy, he keeps telling himself, over and over on constant repeat, he would be happy if Murphy were happy. If he could see it with his own eyes. If he could hear him admit it.

*

He hears her moan when he's leaving the elevator.  
  
Connor freezes, trying to decide whether he can be sure it's their apartment. Then, whether it's _her_ or whether it could be someone else. That night at the bar was the only time he heard her, just this once. Maybe twice. Certainly not enough for his brain to record it to a degree—it's her. The metal of the key digs into his palm, and Connor grits his teeth, wills his hands to stop shaking, and unlocks the door.

The concept of moving leaves him.

They're next to it, not an arm's length from where he's standing. At the door to his apartment. The one he's sharing with Murphy.

Where the fuck else was he supposed to go, this is his home, this is their home, he never would've brought anyone here and before, Murphy wouldn't have either. But he did. Murphy brought her and pressed her against the wall and wrapped her thigh around his hip and put his hand between her legs.  
  
She stopped moaning, but Murphy hasn't stopped moving his hand.

Connor still hears it, the vulgar sound of it. If he stopped holding his breath, he could maybe smell it, too. Unable to look away, his eyes snap between Murphy's hand and his eyes, and Murphy stares right back, unreasonably calm with his forehead pressed against her temple.  
  
The moment stretches on until Connor is ready to claw out of his skin with the urge to run away, to say something or hit something, to yell a bit.

They're not even undressed. How urgent it must've been to do it right next to the door, maybe they just managed to get inside and then Murphy's hands must've been on her at once, hiking up her skirt to get access—  
  
Connor leaves.

The door closes with a soft click and he stands rooted to the ground, hands shaking and mind reeling. Murphy knows at which time he comes back from Rocco's. It's always the same. They must've met like he thought they would, right when he's busy elsewhere so they wouldn't meet. Except for today, when Murphy chose to bring her to their home, risking—knowing he'd find them.  
  
On wobbly legs, Connor goes back to Rocco's. He doesn't mention what he saw, and Rocco rolls his eyes and gives him another beer.  
  
“It's hard to see him grow up, I get that.” Rocco nods, eyes glued to the screen of his shitty TV. “Was about time though, I sometimes wondered already.”  
  
Soon after, with his fingers around the seat of the toilet, Connor loses the beer. He doesn't mention that either, and when he goes home in the morning, she's gone and Murphy gets some cereal for him too, talking about groceries and half-empty smokes as if none of it was a big deal. Nothing's changed and everything's changed. It could happen anytime, there's no way for him to know when he can't come back to his own fucking home anymore.  
  
He loses the cereal and sends Murphy out for some meds against stomach pains. They don't help.

*

From there on, he's careful and he hates every second of it, and anger rises in him like a hot flood when he realizes he's unable to move freely, always on the lookout for signs of Murphy bringing her home again. He keeps glancing at clocks to check if it's a reasonable time to go home instead of just fucking going like he always did. All his _life_. There shouldn't be anything extraordinary about this situation. They've been within arm's reach for two and a half decades, this isn't the first girlfriend Murphy had. It's nothing new for either of them, except for the trespassing.  
  
He doesn't catch them again, thank the fucking Lord, but he still deals with them fucking for weeks while Murphy talks far less about her than reasonable for someone breaking down barriers with a sledgehammer like he does, going against everything their Ma raised them to be. For all intents and purposes, Murphy should be talking about her all day long. Loving, boring sweet-talk. Maybe even gushing about her. Anything to justify the moral shift.  
  
It's just as well. They can't keep living together forever, it will stop being cute really fucking soon anyway. Like Rocco said - he did wonder already. He's not clear about what exactly, but it's as good as any starting point.  
  
“Murphy,” he says.  
  
Murphy turns away from the stove, looking friendly.  
  
Something tightens around his heart. “Yer gonna marry her or what?”  
  
Murphy stares ahead, blinking at something behind him. Then he nods and turns away again. “I might.”  
  
That's it, then. It's overdue. It's supposed to be like this.  
  
It doesn't explain why he's losing his steak, later, stoically helping himself to a second one, or why Murphy has that pinched look about him all evening, talking a mile a minute about everything and nothing at all.  
  
It's overdue. It should be like that. It shouldn't be a _surprise_.

*

He asks Murphy if he fancies going to McGinty's, and Murphy says no.  
  
Planning to be insulted, Connor mopes until he grows bored enough to notice the frown on Murphy's face. He lights a smoke to hide the fact that he's staring and starts to watch him, taking in the downturn of his lips and the slope of his shoulders with growing alarm. Murphy looks subdued, he looks—unhappy. But that can't be right.  
  
Connor clears his throat. “Yer all right?”  
  
Murphy shrugs, eyes fixed on whatever he's doing over at the table. “Yeah.”  
  
It doesn't sound like a yeah, it sounds like a clear and definite no, but it's also clear and definite that Murphy has no interest in talking about whatever rubs him the wrong way on this otherwise ordinary evening. Thus, Connor manages to hold off asking for all of an hour, then he tries for something simpler, “Fancy some pasta?”  
  
Murphy shrugs.  
  
Connor cooks pasta.  
  
After dinner, Murphy sits down with a weary sigh and starts watching TV. He's not outright saying anything or pulling a face or doing anything else one could put their finger on, but he's known Murphy all his life, he knows his fucking face and this face - it's not a happy one. For the lack of a better word, he'd say it's a sad face, but Murphy doesn't have reasons to be sad. On the contrary; he's about to become a man. A happy one, and Connor will be happy _for_ him, all right.  
  
Days go by and nothing changes.

For a while, Connor stops making suggestions and takes to watch Murphy instead, resulting in no new insight whatsoever. Except for Murphy being sad, which is out of the question. “Let's go to the pictures,” he tries again, glaring at Murphy's profile, prepared to make him agree and, if necessary, use force to achieve it. The tug at his heart isn't a tug anymore, it's a constant needling and it has to stop.  
  
Murphy looks up with a faint smile. “I'd like that.”  
  
They go, even stepping in for a pint on the way home, and the world shifts back into focus like it's righting itself, aligning back to how it should be. Back home, when Connor feels relaxed like he hasn't in too long, a smoke between his fingers and thoughts vaguely on showering, he looks at Murphy, and the smile on his face falters and then dies all the way.  
  
Nothing changed, Murphy looks like he did all week. Maybe longer. There's a quiet sort of slowness about him like his whole self is muffled somehow, or filtered. Like the full level of Murphy-ness isn't coming through; like he's only halfway.

Connor looks away, swallowing against the last gulp of his beer trying to force its way back up his throat. The day was nice. At least from his perspective. Murphy doesn't get to ruin this, too.

*

A few weeks are enough to destroy all of his barriers and it bursts out of him without any control, “It's not _right_ , ye know.” Then he reigns himself in and proceeds to ignore Murphy's incredulous stare turning into glare turning into a frown.  
  
At least it's only this particular outburst and not the other thing inside of him, the one he's afraid of prodding at even when it's dark and he's plastered three sheets to the wind, Murphy's even breaths in the bed next to his keeping him from falling asleep instead of the other way around. He should be lulled in by the regular rhythm, the quiet shuffling he's known all his life, and yet here he fucking is, deprived of sleep and moody and ready to blame his bloody brother, and Murphy just keeps staring at him in that mulish way of his.  
  
So Connor says it again, with a bit more vigor this time. “It's not right.”  
  
“Yer gonna keep repeating that or yer planning to elaborate anytime soon?”  
  
He isn't. Sharing thoughts only helps so much when it's entirely one-sided and uncalled-for. The concept of being alone is so foreign to him, he's unable to sort it out in his own thoughts. _Murphy_ is the clingy one. He always was, and he's not always going to be. What's going to happen: Connor is the one who's going to be alone. Murphy will marry, and rightly so - despite taking his sweet time about it. Sooner or later, Murphy will get his arse moving and the outcome stays the same; he'll be alone and he will not watch Murphy being not-alone with someone else. It's impossible.

He should go home.  
  
“I can't sleep,” he informs Murphy as if that has anything to do with anything, and flops back on the bed, feet still on the floor and head almost hanging upside-down with it.

Ma will be there and she'll pester him about his own marriage. It's a pick between two evils, but watching Murphy being not-alone while he's unable to sleep and, on occasion, keep down food has to be the worst option.  
  
“What's that supposed to mean?” Murphy stares, gnawing on his lip.  
  
Connor averts his eyes and then he looks right back like some invisible magnet is pulling him in. It's obnoxious and sits like a stone in his stomach, especially when Murphy looks him up and down, his eyes roaming over him like he's searching for something. It's not a good look. It's disturbing, and it sends something flying in his head. Connor sits up again, self-conscious.  
  
“What yer saying?” Murphy asks, sounding hectic, and Connor blinks, lost in a conversation he was the one to start. The whole dilemma is more of a quiet and tense affair, not something to be hectic about.  
  
“I'm saying it's indecent,” Connor finds himself saying. “Ye shouldn't let her wait when ye promised to- It's not right, is all.”  
  
Murphy sighs, and there's a quiet noise underneath. “I suppose.”

Connor can't look at him, mind stuck on the sound he thinks he heard. “I don't want to talk about it.” He stares at his hands.  
  
“I- what?”  
  
“Just drop it. Leave me be with the topic.”  
  
Oh.  
  
“Yer a lunatic, ye know that, no?” For dubious reasons, Murphy sounds cheerful, and then he does change the topic even though he was silent all fucking day, now blathering on about every possible and impossible thing that comes to his mind, and when Connor manages to look up without feeling like his face will burst from the heat, he finds Murphy looking rather lively. Maybe even kind, if one was inclined to let their thoughts wander in that direction. Connor isn't.

*

Murphy titters. He's been going at it for hours. The drinking, not the tittering.  
  
Sitting amidst empty bottles he only drank a third of, Connor watches Murphy stumble through the flat, looking dead set on doing something he's too drunk to share. It would be cute if he had just started, but it wore off after Doc kicking them out to close up and Murphy still not stopping when they got back home. Currently, he holds a bottle of tequila hostage, also dead set on not sharing as if Connor even asked for it.  
  
He didn't.  
  
“And then-” Murphy takes a big breath, loading up on air before he goes on to share whatever story he's in the middle if reciting. Connor lost track a while ago and he strongly suspects Murphy did as well.  
  
When Murphy stumbles for good and his legs seem too uncoordinated to get him up from the floor again, he crawls to the wall to lean against it, takes a huge gulp straight from the bottle, and goes on with his story. “Anyway,” he says, frowning.  
  
Connor blinks his eyes away from the TV, fighting a sigh. “Will ye sleep, please.”  
  
Murphy stares in his vague direction, eyes red-rimmed. “Shut yer gob,” he says with a sharp shake of his head and his hand flies to his stomach immediately. Then he takes another gulp. “Weren't ye listening? Or did ye forget- Dunno if that's possible since ye were there for it too, but I can tell ye again. If ye want to.”  
  
“Rocco and the spoon?”  
  
Murphy nods and pulls the corners of his mouth down. “Aye.” He averts his eyes. “So ye were listening.”  
  
“Ye haven't made sense for hours, all right, I can only take so much of ye blathering on about a bloody incident that happened two days ago. In not demented, ye know.”  
  
Murphy hums, and for a while, that's the end of it. Connor would think he fell asleep, but even with Schwarzenegger speeding over the screen and shooting at people, he's still able to make out the sounds of Murphy's occasional sighs. And the sloshing of the bottle when he takes another drink.  
  
After, it's the sound of him retching the tequila back up, thankfully over the toilet. Connor pats his back and listens to the string of half-sentences he curses out. When he's finally empty, Connor pulls him to the closest bed and pries Murphy's fingers from his shirt, trying to look elsewhere and not at the pale face with the red eyes and the damp cheeks. He fucking reeks, but he sure as fuck won't force a toothbrush in Murphy's mouth when he's that many feet away from the toilet.  
  
Murphy pauses squirming and looks at Connor's hands holding his wrists to keep him from latching onto his clothes like a bloody ape. “I can't lose ye,” he says with a firm nod, and then goes drunkenly pliant, already snuggling into the pillow.

With a huff and half a mind to start a good fight, he pulls off Murphy's shoes and struggles the blanket out from underneath his still body to tuck him in.

The audacity to say that to _him_ when Murphy is the one leaving—but he isn't. Fuck.

*

In his head, the trip starts to take form. It's still vague enough he doesn't want to share it with Murphy yet, though he ought to, soon. Keeping a secret, even if it's harmless in itself, feels wrong. Worse than that, it actually hurts and sometimes, when he thinks about it the other way around and Murphy being the one to keep a secret plan from him, the hurt turns sharp and he can't look at his brother for a while. Mostly out of shame, sometimes out of fear.

Something sits on his chest, day after day, until he can barely breathe with the pressure, until he's sure Murphy has to notice and then he _doesn't_ , until Connor lies in bed and clenches his teeth and then his eyes too, balling his fists for good measure until he fucking finally allows the thought to take form. He thinks, hidden: for him, it's always going to be Murphy. He's his priority and he shouldn't be, but nobody asked for his opinion on it. In the end, even when he pretends to love someone else, it's always Murphy, and twins or not, they're not the same. Murphy, obviously, doesn't share this particular affection. Affliction.  
  
Aye, there is the hurt. It has a name.

It's love, he thinks, quiet. That's enough.

*

“I'm going to leave.” He's an arsehole and he knows it, reveling in knowing Murphy will misunderstand him, practically giddy with anticipation to set him right, telling Murphy he isn't, in fact, going out to buy beer but planning to leave the country. The whole fucking continent. Connor grins, feeling righteous.  
  
“I figured,” Murphy says, listless, and leans back in his chair. He taps his fingers against the pack of smokes and looks at the table. “When yer going?”  
  
His plan crumbles like a house of cards and he should be annoyed, he was ready to be mean and to cackle, but instead love rushes through him so possessively it almost leaves him breathless. Murphy knows him, he knows him so well he can't lie to him, he's figured it out, they're that fucking close and how close can he be to that girl then, it's impossible they could share the same bond, there can't be two of a pair like _them_ —Murphy figured it out and he doesn't protest. He just sits there, waiting to hear his travel plans, what the fuck.

“Is that all?”  
  
“Yeah.” Murphy shrugs, fumbling with a smoke. “I've been waiting for it. It's fine, it really is.”  
  
Connor frowns, willing Murphy to make sense and willing him to look up so he can make sense of the look on Murphy's face, too.  
  
“It's fine, all right? I just said so.” Murphy pulls a face, turning in his seat like he spotted something interesting on the wall behind him. “I will- I can do it. About time, no? I need to learn to be on my own anyway, it can't stay like this forever.”  
  
“Ye won't be alone,” Connor says incredulously. That's the whole _point_.  
  
Murphy stands and leaves. He walks all the way to the door without turning around and closes it behind him with a soft click.

*

It's just shy into the night when he comes back, marching in without so much as looking in the direction of his bed. Or at Connor, for that matter. Instead, he paces.  
  
Connor trails him with his eyes, lazy and smug and tired. Murphy came back. Of course he did, he always does. Though, he usually gives him notice beforehand.  
  
“When are ye leaving?” Murphy asks the wall. “Ye said ye would and here ye are, sitting on yer arse all fucking day.”  
  
Connor blinks, feeling his smile falter. “Ye thought I'd leave today?” He stares at Murphy's profile, unable to read his face. “While ye were out?”  
  
“Why not? It would've been fine.”  
  
The thing with a name jerks, cutting him. “I'm going, all right.” Connor sits up, hoping Murphy will turn around and show his bloody face. It's not supposed to _be_ like this.  
  
“Yeah, when?”  
  
This time, Connor catches a glimpse, and while Murphy was never good at hiding his thoughts, now his face looks like a blank wall. A tense one, for unknown fucking reasons. Connor looks away again. “Ye think it's easy- No, ye know what? Yer a fucking hypocrite. First, it's all 'Ohh, I can't lose ye' and now ye can't wait to see me gone—well, ye win, Murph, I'm going.”  
  
Murphy is in his face the second Connor gets up, cheeks red and mouth twisted. “I never- I didn't say that.” He neatly avoids his eyes. “Why yer shouting at me? Yer the one who wants to leave the country, not me.”  
  
Connor shoves him away. “Ye've been waiting for it, ye said so!”  
  
“I've waited for it for fucking years!” Murphy shoves back, harshly panting against his face. “I knew for years, but that doesn't mean I looked forward to it! Of course ye were gonna leave some day.”  
  
A sharp pain sits in his belly, working its way upwards. Any second now he's going to fucking cry like a schoolgirl. “What's that supposed to mean?”  
  
Murphy shakes his head and takes a step back, face pale all of a sudden. “Don't think I didn't see the signs.”  
  
That's it. Connor nods at the back of Murphy's head, clenching his jaw to keep it inside. The hurt with a name. If it breaks free, it will go off like a bomb and he cannot allow—

He grabs his coat and leaves, walking all the way to Rocco's to crash on his couch.

Rocco grins. “Were they at it again?”

In the morning, Connor leaves before he had coffee.

*

For two days, the atmosphere is tense. They're not outright ignoring each other, but it's still uncomfortable enough that Connor is ready to either start packing or to bash his head against the wall. He's not sure yet, and then he wakes in the middle of the night, grinding his jaw when he notices how fast Murphy pants behind him.

If he thinks he's going to wake him from a nightmare, now of all times, when he's practically waiting for him to fucking leave, Murphy has another thing coming—

The slide is rhythmic. Murphy groans like he's clamping his teeth around it, and then he speeds up, skin slapping against skin.

Flustered and somewhat mortified, Connor lies still and holds his breath. He's heard his fair share of Murphy touching himself over the years. There's nothing to be done about it, and he's sure Murphy had the same questionable privilege on occasion, but usually, Murphy likes it slower.

If he remembers correctly.

He thinks, from what he knows—Murphy is rather fond of drawing it out instead of pumping away like there's no tomorrow. Which doesn't make sense in the first place, with all the bloody fucking he's been doing lately.

It's over within minutes. Connor tenses along when Murphy muffles something that might be a moan, and forces himself to keep still until Murphy rustles with the sheets. After a bit, the panting quiets down to regular breathing, shifting to deep breathing and shifting the atmosphere back to normal, making it safe to turn around.

Connor does, quietly, and tries to stare through the darkness. He can't make out Murphy's face, just his vague form, and he doesn't fall back asleep.

*

He shouldn't and he doesn't want to, yet here he is, tracking Murphy with his eyes, unable to stop frowning even though it's been at least six hours and he shouldn't still be thinking about Murphy wanking, for fuck's sake. It's not a big deal. Murphy can do whatever pleases him, this is a private affair. If he needs it to relieve—it wasn't extra relief, he sounded like he needs it before he explodes, groaning and moaning and frantic.

“Where's yer girlfriend?”

Murphy stops stirring his coffee and stands, aiming for the door.

Connor gawks at him. “The fuck-”

The door is open and Murphy marches outside without looking back. Connor follows.

“When was the last time ye saw her?” He jumps down the last steps, staring at the back of Murphy's head. They're out on the street, and Murphy doesn't stop. This isn't _right_. “What kind of husband ye think yer going to be, Mur-”

“Stop- Connor, stop.” Murphy turns to him and then he turns right away again, focusing on the side of the building. “Stop following me.”

“No.”

Murphy takes a stuttering breath, shoulders rising with the intensity, and when they fall down, he deflates like a balloon. “I'll find someone else. I did it once, I can do it again. Ye know I can. Ye saw me do it, no? There's going to be someone else, ye'll see. Doesn't mean we have to- just stop following me. I can _do_ it.”

Connor stops following.

Murphy's shoulders are drawn up around his ears until he makes a turn and disappears from view.

*

Connor drinks Murphy's abandoned coffee and then he takes a shower, thoughts running wild while his hand lingers over his groin like that has anything to do with anything. He doesn't dare touch, not when he's busy with these thoughts in his head and he thinks, maybe, he should examine why his hand thinks it's necessary in the first place. To do it now.

Maybe because he heard Murphy having a go at it and his body took it as a reminder that he hasn't taken care of himself for too long. Maybe, though unlikely, he's just glad to have the privacy to do it while Murphy is who knows where. Without the accompanying weirdness of knowing he's in the same room, it should be this much easier. Despite Murphy always giving him privacy and never so much as looking in his direction when he took himself in hand—

“Quit bullshitting,” Connor says and forces his eyes open. The water burns, and he stares at the tiles, clenching his fists against his thighs to keep himself from reaching out. It's bullshit, all of it. A huge load of it. An enormous fucking load.

He can't even remember the last time he had some action without Murphy being more than a room away. It's not new, nothing about this is new, nothing except Murphy losing his grip on—whatever he loses his grip on. Frantic like he was. Last night, and earlier too, reassuring him he's going to find someone as if he fucking asked Murphy to find someone.

Connor shuts his eyes again and holds his breath until he's sure he won't lose his fucking mind. He needs to think about this with a clear mind, not with his cock waving for attention, not with some sort of ulterior motives stuck in the back of his mind.

“Quit,” Connor whispers, swallowing. He relaxes his hands, pressing them flat against the tiles to ground himself, and allows the thought to take root.

Maybe it's the same for Murphy. They're twins, it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to assume Murphy's inner workings run on the same wavelength. If it's always going to be Murphy for him even—but Murphy wasn't busy loving someone else. He was busy fucking someone else. No, he was busy pretending to fuck someone else.

Inside his mind, something roars.

*

Trying to be reasonable and stomping down on his nerves rising to such heights he's unable to even think about food, Connor waits until the next day while he keeps his eyes on Murphy, not missing how Murphy avoids eye contact at all costs. It would explain everything, and Connor feels high on it, sick and hot and unsure. Maybe he got it wrong and there will be no coming back from it once he says it out loud.

If he's wrong, he'll leave for home as soon as possible. Ma will take him in, he will be fine, and Murphy will find someone else - like he said - and he will also be fine.

If he's not wrong, then—yeah.

He doesn't sleep for a minute. In the morning, Connor sits, smoking and watching Murphy eating toast. It's a stressed affair, and it has to stop. One way or another, it's time they put it to rest and get some sort of conclusion— “Ye put yer face between her legs in a room full of people.”

Murphy freezes, toast midway to his mouth.

It's not the beginning he wanted, but it seems to do the trick. Connor nods, keeping his eyes on his brother. “Ye knew I'd come home that one night. Ye were banging her right next to the door.” He waits, and Murphy doesn't move. “But ye weren't, were ye, Murph?”

“Connor.”

“Ye ever fucked her?”

In his haste, Murphy drops the toast when he moves to stand. “Yer sick,” he whispers.

This is it.

“Aye.” Dazed with fatigue and hunger and that other thing, Connor puts out his smoke and burns his finger, unable to look away from Murphy's frozen form. “Why did ye do it?”

“'Aye'?” Murphy twists his mouth. “Yer saying yer sick? The fuck is going on in yer brain, honestly? What kind of question is that, what do ye care what I do-”

“Ye _didn't_.” Connor pushes himself up from the table, heat pooling low in his body. “Ye didn't do it.”

Murphy takes a step back.

Connor follows, pulling off his shirt. “Ye said ye'd find someone else. Was that the plan? To show me ye can do it?”

“The fucking world doesn't revolve around ye.”

“Did ye do it because of that lass I was fooling around with? Is that why ye kept staring over?” On shaky legs, Connor stalks closer. Now or never, let's go down swinging. “Didn't like what ye saw?”

Murphy stumbles and flees around the table. “I- yer actually sick, that's not- The fuck yer _saying_?”

None of it is a no. The thing with the wrong name tries to break out of him, clawing at his heart and throbbing between his legs. Glory fucking be, this is it.

He takes a step forward, blood pounding in his ears when he finally says it, “I won't go. I will not leave.” Murphy's eyes are huge and dark, looking almost frightened and raising goosebumps when Connor _feels_ them trailing over his chest. “We don't need them,” he rasps, skin hot and cold and clammy at the same time. He sways on the spot, but then he can't wait for Murphy's answer, he waited for long enough, this has been brewing for so long he can't stand it for a minute longer. “We don't need them, ye hear me? I'll stay with ye and ye'll never put yer hands on someone else again.”

Murphy chokes, twitching violently. “Connor- Fuck, Connor, no,” he whispers, and suddenly he sobs. “What yer saying, yer planning to flatten yer own fucking brother?”

Hidden beneath, the thing reveals its true name. Love doesn't cut it, this is everything.

“Don't ye want me to?”

Murphy doesn't answer. He breathes like he's running a marathon, and Connor is on him, crowding him against the wall and opening his belt, his jeans, shoving it all down and watching when Murphy starts to hyperventilate, cock half-hard and filling out rapidly.

“Did she touch ye?”

Murphy sobs again, and then he's presses his wrist over his eyes and cries for real. “Ah, no, ye don't fucking understand. Ye had yer tongue down that girl's throat and I _knew_ ye were gonna leave soon and I didn't- I wanted to show ye. I wanted to prove I can do it too, that I don't need ye like this. I _don't_ —”

Throbbing with shame and lust and love, his head is clouded with thoughts so dark Connor has to clench his fists to keep in control. “I do,” he says. There's no more room for holding back, no sense of right and wrong. “I need ye like air. I need ye and I won't share.” He brushes his fingertips under Murphy's shirt, and Murphy ruts forward, bumping his cock against the underside of his arm. Pushing hard, Connor presses him back against the wall. “Tell me, Murph. Tell me ye need me or say that ye don't.”

Murphy shakes. When he sobs this time, it's quieter; it sounds like a moan. He smells like jam and toast, the smoke he had before, the coffee. He smells intimate, moving for him and needing to be touched. He's everything.

“I can't breathe without ye,” Murphy says, whispering like it's a confession. He bows his head, letting it hang for a moment and speaking so quietly Connor barely hears him over his thudding heart, “I never did.”

Everything holy leaves him.

Murphy strains against his arm, swallowing. He stops shaking, making up his mind. “Now touch me.”

“Aye.” Connor does.

 


End file.
